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Potato is a major food staple in Africa, but its production is constrained by poor quality of seed. A recent private–public partnership in Tanzania resulted in introduction of new higher yielding varieties. The purpose of this paper is to examine smallholder farmers’ motivations to invest in the purchase of quality seed of new potato varieties, and if the motivational structure differs by gender.

The paper used means-end chain (MEC) theory combined with goal priming, and laddering interviews on randomly sampled participants (n=45) of an experimental auction conducted among smallholder farmers in Tanzania. The auction was designed to goal-prime respondents on benefits of quality seed. The mental constructs obtained were grouped into attributes, consequences and values, and MECAnalyst software used to generate hierarchical value maps.

Farmers invest in quality seed of a new variety to increase yields, hence income, and also to pursue personal life goals (values) or meet psychosocial needs. The structure of mental constructs associated with the decision to invest in quality seed of a new variety differ by gender.

The study focused on only two new varieties, hence not robust to all new potato varieties. Results need to be tested under different socioeconomic contexts. Furthermore, the MEC approach does not allow for control of other variables that likely influence farmer adoption decision-making process. Future studies should be designed to tackle these limitations.

Investment in quality seed of new variety is driven by monetary goals and psychosocial factors, and some of these factors differ between male and female farmers.

This is the first study to explore drivers of farmers’ decision to use quality seed of a new variety using MEC analysis, and role psychosocial factors play.

This paper aims to investigate how awareness influences the adoption of positive selection (PS) technology among smallholder yam farmers in West Africa. PS has the potential of increasing yield and reducing disease incidence and severity in yam production.

This paper applies the average treatment effect (ATE) methodology to estimate the rates of awareness and adoption of the PS technology and associated factors using data from 678 smallholder seed yam farmers in Ghana and Nigeria.

The results indicate that the actual adoption rates of PS technology are 58 and 55%, while the potential adoption rates are estimated at 89.5 and 79.3% for Ghana and Nigeria, respectively, if the PS technology was fully disseminated. This leads to adoption gaps of 31.7 and 24.8%, respectively, for Ghana and Nigeria stemming from incomplete awareness of the PS among the population of yam growing farmers. The PS adoption is high among the educated young farmers who are members of farmer based organizations and participate in demonstrations.

Promotional efforts for enhancing awareness and adoption of PS should target educated youth willing to participate in field demonstrations and should focus on scaling up of PS technology to ensure quality farmer saved seed yams and enhance yam productivity in West Africa.

The introduction of PS in seed yam production is quite recent also its introduction to seed yam farmers in West Africa. Subsequently, a better understanding of what the adoption status would be should everyone in the population of yam farmers are aware of PS is vital for policy, research and development.

Based on farm diversification's conventional and unconventional nature, the study intends to discriminate different profiles of farm diversification businesses. Furthermore, this study analyses the links between farm diversification efforts, (open) innovation networks as well as the environmental performance (EP) and financial performance (FP) of farms.

A questionnaire was administered through personal interviews with 160 fresh fruit farmers in an inland Portuguese region. Linear regression, latent class analysis (LCA) and multinomial logistic regression were used.

There are significant differences between the levels of diversification, performance and participation in (open) innovation networks of the three classes of farmers discriminated. Different types of diversification efforts and (open) innovation networks influence EP and FP, while FP and R&D projects are associated with the likelihood of being part of a farm diversification class. Moreover, this study shows that innovation networks, promoted by specialized agricultural advisors and R&D projects, are important forms of open innovation in the agricultural sector.

The study contributes to understanding the agricultural sector's diversification efforts and (open) innovation networks and their association with EP and FP. The conventional or unconventional nature of farm diversification was self-reported.

European and local institutions are advised to develop more R&D programs directed to farmers, including environmental and financial issues, besides comprising agricultural and non-agricultural diversification.

This study provides new insights to understand the association between diversification efforts, (open) innovation networks and agricultural businesses' performance.